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Don’t mention the war

Why did Labor join with the government this morning and head off the Greens’ motion for a debate about our return to war in Iraq?

As soon as the Senate convened this morning, Greens leader Christine Milne moved to suspend standing orders “to move a motion relating to the parliamentary approval for the deployment of Australian troops to Iraq”. Labor opposed the motion. It was supported by NSW Senator David Leyonhjelm — who expressed support for Australia’s involvement and the hope it would lead to a separate Kurdish state — PUP Senator Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon.

The debate might have proved embarrassing for Labor, which is keeping close to the government on Iraq issues at the moment, unlike when Simon Crean bravely and correctly stared down internal opposition and led Labor to oppose the first Iraq debacle in 2003.

But there’s another reason, revealed by Xenophon: Labor and the Coalition have struck a deal to not consider “complex and contested motions … including foreign affairs motions” without a “proper opportunity for debate”. According to government Senate leader Eric Abetz, such motions “can have unintended consequences” (unlike, of course, foreign policy blunders). The aim of the deal is to prevent the crossbench parties and independent senators from trying to initiate debates that the major parties may find inconvenient.

The deal was agreed the week that Nick Xenophon moved a matter of public importance debate on Attorney-General George Brandis’ bizarre change to the government’s position on the occupation of East Jerusalem by Israel, which caused ructions within Labor as well as requiring the intervention of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to repair the damage done by Brandis.

So we now have a bipartisan agreement not to debate the very issues that require the most thorough airing because the major parties might find themselves having to express a “complex and contested” opinion. It speaks volumes for the sad state of contemporary politics.

“Labor and the Coalition have struck a deal to not consider “complex and contested motions … including foreign affairs motions” without a “proper opportunity for debate”. According to government Senate leader Eric Abetz, such motions “can have unintended consequences” (unlike, of course, foreign policy blunders). The aim of the deal is to prevent the crossbench parties and independent senators from trying to initiate debates that the major parties may find inconvenient.”

If you need proof of a two party dictatorship…..there you have it.
Off to war we go, it looks like.
I feel sick!

decision for the executive and ALWAYS have been that way in this country

Yes it has, and Aborigines were not allowed to vote once. So what?

In 1985, Senator Colin Mason (Australian Demo
crats) introduced the Defence Amendment
Bill 1985, which sought to require parliamentar
y approval in most circumstances before
Australian troops could be deployed overseas
. The Bill proceeded to
the Second Reading
stage but, without Government
and Opposition support, did not pass

I can’t believe this stuff, it is absurd to suggest this in the national interest. This is not just theoretical any more, we have the test case in Iraq 1 to back it up.

I tried to look at both sides of the case the first time, but the now the evidence is stark. The WMD lies lead us to a world that has placed Australia more at risk, that has killed more of our people and more innocent families abroad.

IS wants a war, they are trying to provoke a war, because it will have better outcomes for them.

Actually that was Iraq 2, and anyone who had been paying attention to UN IAEA special investigator Scott Richter KNEW, absolutely KNEW there were no WMDs left by 99.

So I KNEW it was all a lie and I still got called conspiracy theorist and all the other rubbish from the time Dr Kelly got offed.

And guess what? When, years later, it couldn’t be denied it was all a fabrication by MSM, I WAS STILL WRONG, because “how could I possibly have known”, it was just a *cough* accident *cough* that things panned out just how I’d been describing from day dot.

That’s the problem with most media consumers, they only pay attention to 0.00001% of what they are told, and think themselves informed.

Look at this objectively. IS is a globalist creation…a tool. A tool to engineer a response; one that the media mould and manipulate to generate a required outcome or social response. Why?
Step back from the coal face and see the big picture. The global financial system is very close to a meltdown, with very little chance of ‘growing’ it’s way out of trouble. Now, when you get articles filtering through like this one,http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.VAQHvUg2ZhA
..it tells you something. I says that the people at the top are aware of the situation and they are nervous about the possible outcome. So…..what to do about it? A distraction is required…one that drives fear, abhorrence, and a willingness to comply to military action. This takes a massive effort to achieve, with MSM and others ( i’m looking at you, 3d) ready to push the hard sell on military action. Not that we get a choice in the matter, but far better for the pollies if we approve of the action….we cannot complain if we agree.
Our collective thoughts and fears are being used against us to herd us towards an outcome that will only serve the globalists. What that will be is yet to be seen, but we will not benefit…of that I am sure. Possibly we could be looking at the early stages of world war…that benefits the globalists. What follows is maybe the great reset we have all talked about here. Who knows…..but one thing I am certain of is this. IS is here by design. It is a tool to mould your thinking. The bloodier the videos and beheadings, the better our globalists like it.

Such issues are very serious and require hard headed decision making. Such decisions will ultimately be judged by the Australian community at the ballot box.

The decision to involve our armed forces in conflict, outside of an immediate clear and present danger to the country, should be made at the ballot box before it happens, not afterwards, when people are dead, property destroyed and foreign relations in tatters.

Only go war in a foreign land if the Parliamentarian taking us to war acknowledges the pain and heartache it will cause others by publicly cutting his own throat and plunging the dagger into his own intestines on the steps of parliament.

This administration is DONE. Finished, Everyone is looking to the ’16 battle now, it’ll start early next year, if you think the contenders don’t want a war, you haven’t been following US politics for the last 50 years….

Mig. Labor joined the Coalition. The call for debate originated in the Senate initiated by one of the nuisance parties – the Senate is not the seat of Government. House of Reps is. Assume the Senate vote an extension of the interests of the House of Reps and you have an overwhelming majority of voters represented.

By not bothering to argue the case for it, both party are treating the voters with contempt. Why is Australia flying in equipment and weapons to the Kurds when there is a perfectly safe land route via Iraq? Maybe the Iraqi government doesn’t WANT the Kurds to be armed?

It is worth pointing out – yet again – that when muddled thinkers use the word “representative” in relation to government, they are engaging in a “semantic fallacy”.

A semantic fallacy arises when a word which has a well-known meaning in one context (often a meaning with a strong emotional value) is used in another context in which that meaning either does not apply or cannot apply, or can be applied only by creating a tautology.

Let’s consider the various non-political meanings of “representative”.

First, there is statistical representativeness.

Statistical representativeness occurs when a sample is drawn from a population and the sample is required to have the same proportions as that population for some parameters which are regarded as important. For example, it may be thought important to have the same proportions by age, or by sex, or by religion, or by income, or by weight, or by ethnic origin, or educational qualifications, or by the presence of some gene, or by place or residence, or by number of children, and so on, and so on.

If one wanted statistical representation of this type, it would be better to choose “representatives” randomly, by lottery.

Elected politicians are clearly not statistically representative of the population a whole. For a start, they are all politicians!! As discussed on other occasions, the very process of elective government adversely selects megalomaniacal (and possibly psychopathic) political agents.

Elected politicians are statistically unrepresentative in all sorts of other ways as well. They tend, for example, to be more gregarious than the general population. But it is not necessary to go through all the ways in which they are statistically unrepresentative. The mere fact that they are elected politicians destroys the possibility of statistical representation.

Secondly, “representation” may take the meaning of individual agency. For example, a barrister “represents” his or her client in court the following sense: we expect that the barrister will put forward the same arguments that the client would, assuming that the client had sufficient legal skill and was sufficiently articulate. The barristers acts as if her or she were the client.

But that form of “representation” cannot possibly apply in politics. It cannot apply even in principle. Why? Because in politics there is more than one client, and the wishes of the clients clearly conflict. Which “client” is the political “representative” going to represent?

The absurdity of political representation of this type is vividly illustrated by imagining oneself arriving at court one morning to find that your barrister was “representing” not only you but your opponent also, and the state, and anyone else who might claim an interest in your case!!

In such cases, the agent is not acting as a representative but as an arbiter.

Thirdly, there is the concept of “representation” that involves an individual or a group appointing an agent to act on their behalf. Typically they will set out the terms of the agency. They will give the agent certain latitude but require other matters to be referred back to themselves for direct decision.

Once again – in Australia as in most other countries – that meaning of “representation” cannot apply because The People have never been asked whether they wish the politicians to act on their behalf. They have never been given a choice between direct democracy and elective government.

In Australia and in most other countries The People have simply been told that the politicians will enjoy a monopoly on legislative and executive power, and asked which team of politicians they would prefer to exercise that monopoly.

Had Australians ever been given an opportunity to choose between direct democracy and elective government, then one might say that those who chose elective government had chosen to be “represented”. But the politicians have always been very, very, very careful not to offer that choice. (Even if they had offered it sometime in the past, it would apply only to those who voted on it at the time and not to their distant descendants.)

So where does that leave us?

We can say that elective government is “representative” only if we introduce yet another meaning (a sui generis meaning) of “representative”, namely “the thing that elective government is”.

But sui generis definitions of this type are tautological: “elective government is ‘representative’ because ‘representative’ is defined to mean elective government”.

If you really want to know what the People of Australia want, there is an easy way to find out. Ask them! Directly. In a referendum:

“Do you want a review of the system of government, with the details of review to be determined by a subsequent series of initiatives and referendums?”

Perhaps the People of Australia do prefer being ruled by politicians. If so they would vote “No” in any such referendum.

However, we know from the historical record that wherever people have been given that choice they almost invariably vote for direct democracy. And where they have such democratic rights they do not vote to abolish them, even though it is a straightforward process to call a referendum for that purpose. That is rather damning evidence against so-called “representative” government.

So rather than telling The People how they ought to be represented, why not try asking them how – or if – they want to be represented.

We are dealing with the reality. The reality that our party system is filled with psychopathic egomaniacs (and in the ALPs case the sons and daughters of) that have done nothing other than survive a system that selects for those willing to prostitute their representation to a party cabal that rewards them with a few bucks

I want to vote ,say independent. The Forced preferential system makes me then vote the full card where ,surprise ,surprise there is LIB & LAB lurking. So I end up voting for a party I don’t want.
An elected Hypocracy, not Democracy

It has been interesting to watch the Parties try their best to emasculate the Senate, which is the only place with a glimmer of hope. But full forced preferencing is still a problem, just saved a bit by proportional representation.

There is actually very little that can be done in the face of such structural resistance and a brutally big marketing budget.

I’m all for abolishing parties, in truth you are voting for an individual anyway.

The Greeks long ago observed, during that lamentable strife remembered by generations of schoolboys as The Peloponnesian Wars, that the spirit of faction lives much longer than the reasons for faction; its polarizing and ingrained psychology rendering reforms impracticable for a two generations, whence the Athenian state was hollowed out from within and menaced from without. Ultimately to fall never to rise.

It was great for the Oligarchs though, who literally held the society ransom with politics until at length it destroyed them all.

I agree drs the parties should be gone off the ballot, but forced preferencing is still the big problem. Optional preferencing is a much better democratic process, it gives a strong independent or a minor party a much fairer chance as it avoids the majors acting in concert to reinforce the duopoly.

Nailed it. If you want to understand Oz politics, look no further than footy. It’s that simple.

In this case, I tend to suspect we’ll go without sending combat troops; the reason being that the yanks also don’t want to send combat troops. I live in California, and my feeling is that such a move would be very unpopular here in the USA. I admit I have little clue, but I would bet against it for now.

As discussed previously (here), contrary to the claims of certain elitists it is not some “fault” on the part of The People which leads to two-party government. Rather it is the Game Theory of the single transferable vote.

Imagine a simplified example in which there are 10 generic issues, each of which is “most important” for 10% of the population and that they are equally divided on the other issues.

Now imagine 12 parties:

Party A supports issues 1 to 5 and opposes 6 – 10;

Party B opposes issues 1 to 5 and supports 6 – 10;

Parties C to L are single-issue parties supporting each of the 10 issues.

Supporters of Issue 1 will vote for Party A if – on balance – they prefer its position on the remaining 9 issues. Party A may be expected to receive about half of the Issue 1 supporters. The same applies for Issues 2 – 4. In total Party A may expect 25% of the vote in this way.

Likewise, Party B may expect 25% of the vote.

Each of the remaining 10 parties may expect on average about 5% each. They will have no effect. Under a single transferable vote system, votes for them will simply find their way to the major parties.

(In the absence of transferable votes, even voters who might find Issue 1 of most importance to themselves might still not vote for the corresponding party because it would be a vote wasted.)

This assumes that there is no collusion between the major parties. In practice, the major parties may collude with one another and with particularly well-organised lobby groups or campaign donors or other influential individuals or groups to ensure that certain policies are not offered at all.

In light of the obvious futility of the battle and the high costs involved, even supporters of Issue 1 may not bother to organise a Party. They will confine themselves to lobbying the major parties – which is what is observed in practice.

This also doesn’t even begin to account for the initial advantage created by the disengaged voter, the voter who recognises the futility of the process and has lapsed into “sullen acquiescence”. In Australia, such voters are still forced to attend the polling station, and – in front of everybody else – forced to take a ballot paper and are “directed” towards a voting “booth” where there is little privacy anyway. In such circumstances, the easy thing to do is to follow the instructions on one of the how-to-vote cards, most of which are provided by the well-funded and well-organised political parties.

The system of elective government simply cannot reflect the underlying preferences of the population. Voters can only choose between the two blocs of Oligarchs who will rule them for the next three years.

Of course, there is a simple way to check if the People really do prefer this form of government: hold a referendum with the question:

Do you support a review of the system of government, with the details of review to be determined by a subsequent series of initiatives and referendums?

Labour voters are very unhappy with Rudd/Gillard/Shorten, but that’s nothing compared to how a lot Liberal voters seem to feel about Abbott. Regardless of voting systems and all that other stuff, they’re skating on thin ice if they don’t engage with their supporter base soon (that goes for both of them)